Unforeseen Contingencies

Where there is no market economy, the best-intentioned provisions of constitutions and laws remain a dead letter. Ludwig von Mises

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
Thomas Jefferson

I was once asked by an advocate of citizen disarmament what I thought of 'gun control,' ... as I framed my answer, he added, 'Give me the short answer.'
'Okay,' I answered, 'if you try to take our firearms we will kill you.'
Mike Vanderboegh

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Limited vs. Unlimited Government

Addendum to my previous post: There's another point that's quite important. WaPo has introduced an idea in this article that will become increasingly common.

Washington Post barely managed to constrain its hysteria over the Malheur decision. It repeatedly refers to a "circus sideshow" .. that's how they refer to people who read the Constitution and wave American flags. You'll never hear them say anything like this about Black Lies Matter mobs that incite riots outside courthouses, nor did they ever mock people who demonstrated outside courthouses during same sex marriage cases. But now, WaPo takes sides and is upset. The entire piece sneers at opponents of expanded federal authority. This isn't news reporting, it's propaganda on behalf of an unrestricted state...it's Soviet style "journalism."

Am I exaggerating? I don't think so. The media used to refer to people like the defendants as "anti-government," as if they wished to abolish all government, something which was inaccurate but at least arguably might be problematic. But now the term of opprobrium is "limited government activist." (See the caption in the photos.) "Enemy: one who believes in 'limited government' and works for it." For a long time we've known that both the radical left and progressives refuse to acknowledge any limits to the authority of government. We will see increasing use of this "pejorative" in the near future.

Victory for Freedom

A jury has acquitted the leaders of the takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge of all but one charge, and that one resulted in a hung jury. I'm extremely pleased. As WaPo puts it, "[A]ll defendants were found not guilty of charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers and not guilty of possession of firearms in a federal facility. One of the occupiers, Kenneth Medenbach, was found not guilty of theft of a government-owned truck. The jury was hung on the charge of theft of government cameras against Ryan Bundy."

This is terribly important; in effect, jurors stood up to the supremacy of federal bureaucratic diktat. Criminalizing "possession of firearms in a federal facility" is unConstitutional, since the Constitution specifies that our rights "shall not be infringed. Similarly, federal bureaucrats (officers) have gone so far beyond any legitimate authority that impeding them is practically the duty of a citizen. And most importantly, this jury dispensed with the idea that the feds should tell us what to do, and we obey; they put it exactly where it belongs...in the trash.

I strongly suspect Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. If so, then if we are to retain freedom, it will require us to tell the her and the federal government to go to hell, to do it repeatedly, and to be prepared to back this up. The jury's decision is a highly appropriate warning shot across our enemy's bow.

Incidentally, I should add that I think the occupation of the Malheur Refuge Center was a stupid and strategically unwise stunt. It might become necessary for citizens to use force to defend our rights, but this struck me as as unwarranted. Regardless, the feds have so far overstepped their bounds that, as Montana's former governor Brian Schweitzer (D) put it, "sometimes you have to tell the feds to 'go to hell.'"

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Candidates from Hell, Part 2...Hillary Clinton

Anybody but Clinton!

In past presidential elections, I have never voted for a candidate who won. For that matter, I've never voted for a major party candidate.Frankly, how I vote likely doesn't matter for the outcome of the race. Most of my votes were in Montana, where even if mine was the deciding vote, the state's one electoral vote was irrelevant. However, in Montana, my third party votes did help push the party (in most cases, Libertarian) above the threshold where the party gained automatic ballot status in the next election. I was always proud of those votes.

Today I voted an absentee ballot for president. I think I am more proud of this vote than any other I've ever cast, because I voted to stop the most potentially destructive and corrupt candidate to run in my lifetime, Hillary Clinton.

There's no sense in wasting a great deal of space detailing that bad aspects of Hillary Clinton; I'll simply summarize. Hillary Clinton:

Committed multiple felonies regarding her carelessness with highly classified materials and permitting foreign governments and other actors to hack it.

Covered up her incompetence in the Benghazi debacle and helping to fabricate a phony case against a film, and blaming the First Amendment.

Conspired with the DNC to rig the Democrat primaries.

Conspires with the news media to twist campaign coverage in her favor. (She seems to corrupt everything she contacts.)

Plans a war against the First and Second Amendments should she get into office, including draconian gun confiscations.

Sold American foreign policy for donations for the Clinton Foundation.

Plans to destroy the health care system by moving to a fully socialized system, and destroying the university system by "free" college.

Plans to appoint radical leftist judges who will reverse Heller (thus denying the Second Amendment applies to citizens) and Citizens United (thus denying the First Amendment applies to citizens except when they act purely individually).

Will raise taxes on the vast majority of us.

Will raise the minimum wage.

Will import, at our expense, at least tens of thousands of Muslim refugees.

Will get citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, who will immediately be signed on as recipients of Federal aid and as Democrat voters.

Has no particular skills or talents that actually qualify her to be president,

Is extremely vindictive and will be destructive. This woman who identifies Republicans and gun owners as enemies will use the full force of the federal bureaucracy against her political opponents.

I could go on, but that's enough. If Hillary Clinton is our next president, I expect trouble in the United States the likes of which we've not seen. I expect an expansion of the power of the federal bureaucracy, which will include outright war on the entire Bill of Rights. It might well include literal war on those of us who support liberty. Also think she'll accelerate the fiscal irresponsibility

I also think she'll accelerate her graft and corruption; she'll be a billionaire in short order, if she isn't now. Vladimir Vladimirovich will have nothing on her.

As Mark Levin has argued, there's no candidate in the race I can really support. But there's certainly a candidate I can oppose, and it's Clinton -- I would vote for any of the other candidates -- Trump, Johnson, Stein, Castle, Kotlikoff, McMullin, even Solipsist (heh) -- who had a chance to beat her, and do it proudly. I now vote in Michigan, and rather clearly, the only candidate here with any chance at all of beating her for electoral votes is Trump, so I voted Trump-Pence, the only vote I ever cast for a Republican presidential ticket. And I am very pleased and satisfied by this vote; I found it far more satisfying than any other vote I ever cast, because I know that in casting this vote I have done what I can to block Clinton's path. That's my goal, and I had no hesitation or second thoughts about it.

I'm always astounded by people who talk about voting as if it is an exercise in signalling one's personal virtue, instead of an exercise in politics. I think Trump is an awful candidate -- heck, I'm a "never Trumper" -- but he's clearly far superior to Clinton.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Candidates from Hell: Interlude #2

Let me follow up on my previous post. Is it reasonable to use North Korea as a standard of comparison for the current political mess America is in?

Yes, the rest of the world, including North Korea, *is* the appropriate standard of comparison. That's because there's a complete lack of perspective among many of our fellow citizens. To listen to the most vocal, it's the end of the world for America. "This is the Flight 93 election, we are all going to die anyway so vote Trump." "Trump is a Nazi." It doesn't matter what side one is one, we can all agree, "the end is nigh."

No! That's just not true. It's buncombe. Hillary Clinton is dangerous, but this is not the "flight 93" election. Donald Trump is a mentally unstable scoundrel, but he's not Hitler and Trumpkins aren't brownshirts. Our candidates are bad, our politics may often be bad, but in many ways we live in paradise, and we do indeed have opportunities to fight statism. We shouldn't forget this.

Both of these terrible candidates propose awful policies, things that have been discredited long ago, centuries ago in many cases. Our task is to keep fighting bad ideas, keep spreading good ones, keep resisting evil, and keep doing good.

Economist Mario Rizzo of NYU was once asked why Austrians keep saying the same things. His response,: "because people keep making the same mistakes." Paul Krugman says same about free trade. Almost everyone is wrong on this issue except for us, the economist." Freedom is crucial for the survival and advance of civilization, and we need to keep patiently making this point. This is not Flight 93. After Hillary Clinton, or perhaps Donald Trump, or even (please GATU) Evan McMullin is declared the winner, we will continue or work for freedom. 2016 is a bad patch, but we need to simply run through it and keep running, that is, keep fighting for liberty and

Candidates from Hell -- Interlude #1

I'm about to continue with the "Candidates from Hell" series, but before I do, here's a reminder that we should all keep the current mess in perspective. This is a note I sent to several friends and colleagues.The other night we had a talk here at our college by a young woman who is a defector from North Korea. It was exceptionally good, quite moving. (She cried a bit during it, and she wasn't the only one.) Well, during the Q&A she was asked her opinion of this election; her response (almost verbatim) was "these are the worst candidates ever. And you should count yourselves so fortunate, because you can acknowledge this freely. In North Korea, you'd get the Party candidate and if you voiced anything other than complete enthusiasm, not only would you be killed, so would your family members."

All of our candidates stink, but it is only lack of perspective if we conclude that therefore our situation stinks. Re-read those last couple of lines from her talk. Think about what they mean. Don't forget thm.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Russia: planning on starting a hot war?

Yes, possibly so.

A report says Russian diplomats are being told to send their families home to Russia. (Wow, it's not like Soviet times! Diplomats' children can go abroad, instead of being held hostage to prevent defections!)

National security specialist Tom Rogan predicted that Russia would use the Syrian "cease fire" to attack its enemies, defend Assad, and consolidate its position. Everything Rogan predicted has come to pass, in spades.

What is Russia up to? Certainly further weakening the United States and NATO is #1 on Putin's agenda, but "we" at Unforeseen Contingencies have no inside information. We only remember what one of our Russian friends told us. "You might not know what they are up to, but they are Russians, you can be sure they are up to something."

Sunday, October 09, 2016

Le Grizz 2016 ... race report

As last year, we ran the new North Fork course, under the sponsorship of the Polebridge Mercantile. This is the old government shutdown course from 2013, running along the western boundary of Glacier National Park (GNP). My crew this year year consisted of my lovely Julie and longtime friends Jeff Ross and Marc Pittman. I know both of them from our undergraduate days at Montana State -- I've known them longer than anyone I'm not related to. Both grew up in the Flathead, Marc stll lives here and Jeff makes an annual pilgrimage here with me for the race.

The race: as usual, Jeff, Julie, and I stayed in Mini Golden Inns in Hungry Horse, MT. Marc showed up at dark thirty AM, we loaded gear in his pickup, and set out for Polebridge. I took the early start, an option for those of us who want to get to the finish line beer and chicken sooner. At least, I think that's what it's for. (I discount the rumor that it's for people who are so slow that passing trees requires acceleration.) I picked up my race number and prepared to run.

At 6:30 AM Pat Caffrey touched off the Official Le Grizz 12 Gauge Starting Device, and we were off! in the pitch dark. I've been having some troubling hip pain, and it bugged me early on, a somewhat unsettling omen. I feared I had an increasingly painful day ahead of me. I ran with several different people: Tim Marchant, who, like me was after his 16th finish, David, an ultrarunner from WI who was on the flight with us, Beth, a writer from Brooklyn NY, and Rebecca, a ranger from GNP, and, of course, Jeff Ross on his bike. We watched the sunrise, watched whitetails run from us, heard the bugling of either a bow hunter or a bull elk with laryngitis. Running like this is fun. You're not running fast, it's easy to talk, and the scenery is beautiful once there's daylight. It began to drizzle at 8:30, half an hour before the Weather Underground predicted time of 9:00, and rarely stopped for the rest of the day... except when it was raining. Marc and Julie drove the pickup, and met us about every 5 miles with water and Perpetuem.

The first part of the run heads south from Polebridge for about 10 miles and then back, thengoes north for 15 miles and back. Jeff rode with me for about 15, and then Marc took over and said he would run with me for the next 4.5 miles to Polebridge. He hadn't done a run longer than 2 miles for months but felt he could handle it. He did.

At Polebridge, my crew all went to the Merc for pastries and coffee while I continued north. Oddly, my hip was getting better, not worse, and I was feeling remarkably good. As I climbed up the big hill from Polebridge, I heard some crashing in the trees over the edge of the road, either a moose or bear I guessed. I looked over, saw a patch of black fur and thought "moose," but a could of steps later had a clear shot and saw a very large black bear running straight away from me. I had a really excellent view of him at maybe 40 yards. Black bears don't alarm me at all, I was just very excited to see it, and called to a couple of runners behind me "bear" and motioned for them to run up to see. They looked startled,almost as if they would turn and run the other direction. I told them it was running off, and that there was nothing to worry about.

After that, well... there was more running, and running, and walking, and running. Two miles before the turnaround at Trail Creek, Marc decided he would run another two with me and have Julie pick him up at the turnaround. Thanks to miscommunication, Julie thought she was to wait, which gave Marc an additional four miles. So what the heck, after a one mile break he ran more with me, and ended up with around twenty miles. Yes, we are signing him up to race next year. Jeff will really have his hands full.

As the run went on, I felt increasingly good and pain-free, although increasingly tired for some reason. I had a strong finish over the last miles and managed a fairly good "sprint" across the finish line for number 16.

Support crews have the hardest work on race day; they are the most valuable people on the course. So this morning I took my support crew to breakfast at the always excellent Buffalo Cafe in Whitefish. And this afternoon, Julie and I did a short trip into GNP. Spectacular!

That's it. Another excellent day at Le Grizz! As triathlete Sally Edwards once observed, "if you're not having fun,you're not living." Running Le Grizz is living.

Photos soon.
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Post script: Back in Michigan, Chaos (who couldn't accompany us) completed her first 5K color run with her friend Ian. Another race report will follow!

Saturday, October 08, 2016

Le Grizz...my sixteenth finish!

I'm happy to report that I successfully completed my 16th Le Grizz 50 Mile Ultramarathon! We ran in wet, cool conditions, a fair amount of drizzle and some real rain, but nothing terrible like the deluges of two years ago. I beat my last year's time by 7 or 8 minutes. I had first class support from Julie, from Jeff Ross, and from Marc Pittman, who not only provided his 1 ton pickup as a support vehicle but also ran 20 miles with me, despite having not run more than a few miles a week over the past year. We're signing Marc up for next years run, whether he likes it or not!

Race report will follow later, including an account of my bear sighting.

Friday, October 07, 2016

A FARCical Nobel Peace Prize

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Price is often a farce, as in the case of the awards to EU and Barack Obama. But today's award to Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos is both farcical and very disturbing. It's farcical because Santos' proposed agreement was, fortunately, narrowly voted down by the Colombian people. The proposed deal would have given FARC in effect a guaranteed representation in Congress, as well as immunity for horrendous crimes.

Former president Alvaro Uribe, an opponent of the deal, argued for a revised proposal that would provide:

FARC members found guilty of crimes be barred from running for public office

FARC leaders serve time in prison for crimes committed

That FARC use use its illicit gains to pay compensation to victims

That no changes be made to the Colombian constitution

All of that seems eminently reasonable. FARC, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, began as a Marxist guerilla group and, appropriately enough, evolved into a narco-gang, a major producer of cocaine and other drugs. In addition to wholesale terrorism and murder, FARC engaged in kidnapping for profit, employed conscripted child soldiers, and used torture and sex abuse.

I find the awarding of the Nobel to Santos disturbing for two reasons. First, it constitutes interference in the very serious internal politics of Colombia. As always, for the Norwegian prize committee this is simply a chance for moral posturing, a costless opportunity for them to proclaim their own imagined moral superiority, but for Colombians, getting the internal politics right is a life-and-death matter. The Nobel committee should stay out. Award the prize where at least it will do little harm. But second, and more importantly, I think it shows the degraded nature of contemporary morals. Marxism is not a peaceful philosophy and is incompatible with the principles of a liberal society. A compromise between the peaceful principles of liberalism and violently illiberal philosophies is not peace. In fact, that which brings real peace might sometimes be a war that crushes the enemies of peace. As I pointed out in my commentary on the EU Peace Nobel, if one really were serious about an award for promoting peace, it ought to go to the United States, which ended two world wars started by other people (mostly Europeans) and also blocked the USSR from starting a third. No country has done more to prevent totalitarianism from reigning than the United States.

But let's go farther. The real peacemakers are the various branches of the United States military. I want a Nobel Peace prize for them. Until they receive it, the nicest thing I can say about the Nobel Peace Prize is that it is largely a sick joke.

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Off to Le Grizz!

The Second Saturday of October is upon us, the most sacred of personal holidays on the calendar of the entire staff of Unforeseen Contingencies. Yes, 8 October will be the annual running of the Le Grizz 50 Mile Ultramarathon, starting and finishing at Polebridge, Montana. Chief blogger and ultrarunner Charles N. Steele will be attempting his 16th finish, accompanied by his usual (OK, they are pretty unusual) crew of support crew members.

It's typically the case that the Nobel Prizes in Peace (haha) and Economics are awarded while we are traveling. I will try to give report on these and the race while we're on the road.